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SUNDAY, AUGUST 22, 2010
ROY FURCHGOTT
They say the camera never lies, but blurring the lines sometimes reveals the photographer’s true vision. To get the look he wanted, the author used Dfine to remove specks of “noise” from this photo, then softened the background with Bokeh and used Viveza 2 and PhotoTools2.5 on his subject’s skin and face to create a just-so glow.
TRAVELTECH Pro’s tools turn a photo oop into an op BY ROY FURCHGOTT Very fewphotographs are per-
fect right out of the camera, even the ones the professionals take. What separates the pros fromthe hacks is the ability to fix photo flaws in the darkroom. This ex- plains the popularity of Photo- shop, the digital photo retouch- ing program whose plethora of tools puts a sophisticated digital darkroom in any shutterbug’s computer. But there is a problem with
Photoshop. It has so many tools and techniques that it can take years tomaster themall. Fine for the pros, but the casual snap- shooter may not want to take on so much work. Now, thanks to some enterprising software de- velopers, you don’t have to. A number of companiesmake
software programs called plug- ins, which work with Photoshop to, among other things, automate complex corrections of the sort that pros use to give theirmodels porcelain skin, intensify the blue of the sky or lend landscapes a painterly quality. You can get the same the effects with just a few basic Photoshop skills and a couple ofmouse clicks. Here’s a look at some of the
top Photoshop plug-ins, what you need to know to use them, and what they can do for your photographs. We tested the full- featured versions of the prod-
ucts, but in some cases there is a less expensive version with am- ple but fewer tools. Although some of them aren’t for begin- ners, every product here has an online video tutorial that can make anyone basically compe- tent in less than an hour and good with touch-ups in a few hours.
OnOne PhotoTune3 $160, Mac andWindows
Even the rankest beginners
can improve the colors and the clarity of their shots with PhotoTune3. In automaticmode, it shows you two versions of your photo. You click the one you like better, then go on to the next comparison. It adjusts color, brightness and sharpness. Even in the automatic mode, there’s a sliding control that lets you add more or less of an effect at each step. Or you can go into “pro” mode and adjust from sliders without suggestions from the program. The promodemay be a nice addition to Windows com- puters, but it is very close to a control already in Mac’s iPhoto, which can be found by clicking on “edit,” then “adjust.”
If you want to do more than
correct color, you’ll need to learn some basic Photoshop skills, such as adding color changes to just part of a picture. The follow- ing tools offer instructional vid-
eos to help.
Nik Viveza 2 $200, for Mac andWindows Viveza 2 looks similar to
PhotoTune3, offering sliders to adjust contrast, brightness and saturation, among other things. But Viveza’s trick is that it lets you apply the changes selectively, using a simple tool called a control point. When a sky didn’t come out as azure as I remem- bered, I put a control point on the blue and then adjusted the colorwithout affecting the rest of the picture. You can also choose “brush,” which takes you back into the Photoshop program so that you can apply the chosen adjustment even more selective- ly with a virtual paintbrush.
OnOne Phototools2.5 Pro $260 for Mac andWindows
Phototools offers some of the
features of Viveza, but with pre- built filter effects composed of the multiple steps professional photographers take to improve particular kinds of photos, such as landscapes, portraits andwed- ding shots. You apply them in a single click. For instance, a skin- smoothing filter applies a light airbrush effect to people in your photos without your having to use a variety of Photoshop tools selectively on each face. You can add one effect on top of another tomake eye-popping graphics or subtly use a virtual brush to add
or remove them just in specific places.
If your ambitions run to
achieving close to professional quality, or to making outright changes, not just improvements, to your photos, there are filters for that, too, although in some cases you’ll need more than just basic Photoshop skills.Again, the products all have online video tutorials, but be prepared to spend some time learning before using.
Nik Dfine $100, for Mac andWindows
Dfine is a filter that removes
“noise” fromyour pictures.Noise looks like what is called grain in photographs, little specks that give a rough texture to a picture and make it look a tad fuzzy. Dfine reduces noise.Use it before other filters to clean and prep your shots. It is particularly good for improving the quality of pic- tures you’ve taken in low light or with a mobile phone, or older shots from an early digital cam- era.
Alien Skin Bokeh $200, for Mac andWindows
Bokeh is photo jargon for the
blurry background in portraits. It’s also the name of a filter that creates that effect after the fact, making the people in portraits
pop and obscuring distracting backgrounds. This powerful tool requires at least intermediate Photoshop skills. You need to know how to use the selection tools, although a tutorial on the Alien Skin Web site explains it well. Bokeh lets you choose the degree of blur based on specific camera lenses, so it helps to know what different lenses do, although it’s easy to just experi- ment.
Digital Film Tools EZ Mask $195, for Mac andWindows
Sometimes only part of a
photo is salvageable. Say you capture your daughter with a beatific expression, but your son hasmade rabbit ears behind her. You may want to clip the best element from one picture and put it on another background. It can be a painstaking process —
Don’t knowan f-stop froma bus stop?Well, shoot. BY ANDREA SACHS David Muse pointed out the
girl in the bikini for all the right reasons — not to ogle but to illustrate a precept of good cam- era work. “That tells a story,” photogra-
phy teacher Muse explained, “about how it’s so hot in Balti- more, she’s walking around the city in a bathing suit.” For three hours on a swelter-
ing summer Saturday, the found- er of Baltimore Photo Safari fo- cused our lenses on the mini-vi- gnettes staged along the Inner Harbor. A bride en route to her nuptials.The comings and goings of boats. The World Trade Cen- ter’s reflection in the dark blue water. A Baywatch babe in the city.Equally important,he taught us how and when to snap, and what the ISO setting really does. “The goal is to get you to
realize that you can take more control of your camera,” he said. “You will see different results. You might not always love them, but as you practice, you will become more pleased with your photos.” As any amateur knows, there’s
always room for improvement. Sure, you can aimand fire at your subject, hoping that at least one of your 217 photos of the Taj Mahal at dusk is a keeper. Or you can enlist the help of a pro and shoot images that are frame-wor- thy not by luck but thanks to sheer skill. “I’m a picture nut, but I have
no direction,” admitted Mary- lander Carolyn Curro, who at- tended the class with her Nikon- toting friend Sherry Rhodes. For those interested in travel
photography, workshops abound, in some of the world’s most photogenic destinations. For instance, ShawGuides, an on- line compendium of learning va- cations, lists courses in Crete, Santa Fe, London, Provence, Mongolia and other National Geographic centerfolds. Closer to home, Washington Photo Safari holds shorter classes in our over- exposed front yard, including the nationalmonuments, theNation- al Zoo and the White House. Muse’s company concentrates on Baltimore (Inner Harbor, by day or night; Fell’s Point, etc.), with occasional forays into such pic- turesque spots as CapeMay, N.J.,
PHOTOS BY ANDREA SACHS/THE WASHINGTON POST
Boats drift in the InnerHarbor and into the author’s viewfinder. Instructor DavidMuse says, “Your image of the dragon boats provides sufficient space in front of each water craft . . . and lets the viewer know these boats are available near theNational Aquarium.”
Chincoteague, Va., and Bombay HookNationalWildlifeRefuge in Dover, Del. For the photographer with beginner goals — i.e., want- ing tounderstandher flashbetter and learn how to stop chopping off her subjects’ feet—a half-day coursewas an ideal introduction. Our group rendezvoused out-
side theMaryland Science Center for a quick briefing byMuse,who was dressed in urban safari at- tire: hiking boots, brown pants, checked shirt, blue cap. He showed us a series of photos, using the USS Constellation and his children asmodels, that high- lighted various lessons: study the scene before shooting, don’t over- crowd the image, and zoomin on details. “It should be clear to everyone
what you took the picture of,” he said. “Decide what you want the photo to be of and eliminate
everything else. Keep the compo- sitions simple, or as simple as possible.” After covering the basics and
offering some one-on-one in- struction on our individual cam- eras, Muse led us down to the harbor for some practice shots. At the water’s edge, we stood before an unobstructed view of the World Trade Center and the city skyline. He suggested the best aperture for this scene (f/8), which he called “not optimum, because of the haze in the sky.” Unfortunately,withmy point-
and-shoot, I couldn’t manipulate the amount of incoming light, so I simply took a photo of the building, trying to capture the full height as well as the mirror image on the water’s surface. I also kept in mind Muse’s advice to scan the scene to see what other elements I could incorpo-
Photo Safari instructor David Muse assists student Carolyn Curro with her camera settings.
rate into the frame. Some ducks were floating into view, so I waited for their arrival. I brushed the sweat from my brow, took a sip of water, asked Muse a ques- tion and . . .missed them. Moving on, we stopped across
fromthe colorfully tiledNational Aquarium, with the iconic Domi- no sugar sign faint in the back- ground. I regarded the setting, was not inspired, and turned my lens on a weathered dinghy tied up along the wall. “I’m glad you shot that,” said Muse. “I don’t know if that’s bird doo or paint,
after the sun’s descent. Muse, who planted future shots in our heads, explained different ap- proaches to the scene: a close-up of theHardRockCafe guitar logo, a wide-angle shot of the historic industrial structure, an upside- down view of the neon reflected in the harbor. “There’s almost no limit towhat you can shoot here,” he remarked. Before switching off my cam-
Water taxis buzz around the InnerHarbor, providing a nice photo op if you know what to look for. In a critique of the author’s photo, Muse says, “Next time you photograph the water taxis coming in to dock, use the zoom feature on your camera to widen your view.”
but it’s interesting.” The class was nearing the
halfwaymark, and we were steps away from an air-conditioned break in a shopping mall. Rho- des, however, could notwait, and she disappeared inside the visi- tors center. We found her in the darkened theater, watching a film about Baltimore. She’d de- cided to hang up her camera. Now just three, we planted
ourselves at a bend in the harbor, a high-volume intersection of boat traffic. Water taxis loaded with passengers maneuvered around harbor cruises, private vessels and a pirate ship that pelted landlubbers with water. Muse set us up for a shot of an incoming water taxi, its bright blue sign visible as it turned toward the shore. “This is a good shot of the water taxi. The sun is behind us. Use f/5.6, f/4. Blur out the background,” he instructed. Curro nailed it, but I was slow
on the snap, capturing the tail end of the boat and only half the lettering. Muse looked at our images, approving of Curro’s. “Just seeing your pictures on
the wall is a real ego-booster,” Muse said, responding to Curro’s wish to display some of her art. “Frame something of yours and have itmatted.” We walked a few more feet to
close in on the Power Plant facili- ty and its assemblage of neon signs, a picture worth taking
era for the day, I took some pictures of thedragonboatsdrift- ing by the aquarium, sea mon- sters with a nautical bent. I attempted a shot of the Domino sign with a water taxi in the foreground. And I snapped a stealth photo of a woman on a bench, her magenta shirt out- shining the sun. Inmy head, I put her on a dragon boat, bobbing quietly along the waves, her blouse adding another streak to the sunset. If I ever captured that shot, it would be an image worth framing and hanging onmywall.
Epilogue: As part of the
course, Muse will critique three photos. In his review of my trio, he commendedmy exposure and choice of aperture and shutter speed, though I can’t take credit for either (auto deserves the pat on the back). I also received praise formy “choice of subjects.” Muse highlighted some weak- nesses, too: In my image of the World Trade Center, I’d tilted the horizon “so it appears the water is draining off the right side.” Sorry, fish. I also nicked off the top of the building. Pardon,WTC. He reminded me to keep the composition simple (I should have panned over to avoid that stray piece of pier) and not place the subject in the dead center of the frame. The offense: It’s “visu- ally boring.” I also needed to give my subjects more space. Howev- er, of my photo of the dragon boats, Muse said I showed the viewer that “these boats are avail- able near the National Aquari- um.” In other words, I’d told a story about Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.
sachsa@washpost.com
Formore info on Baltimore Photo Safari:
www.baltimorephotosafari. com. The three-hour Baltimore class costs $79.
especially trying to clip around wisps of hair. EZ Mask makes it simpler. You draw a rough out- line of the object you want to save and a series of lines on the background you want to remove. Then EZ Mask does the work. It isn’t very intuitive to use, but it’s far easier than trying the same thing in Photoshop, and with the online tutorial, anyone should be able tomaster it in a few tries. There are dozensmore filters,
many offering demonstration downloads, which allow you to use themtemporarily for free. With a little experimentation,
even your vacation photo flubs may become works of art.
travel@washpost.com
Furchgott writes about travel, food, business and technology. He takes photos on a trip when he should be relaxing.
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